Shen got to the woman in half a second and Inspected her.

Valentina Bianchi (E) — 45 / 110 HP

Valentina had long, curly red hair held in a ponytail and light caramel eyes. Her leather armor was black and laden with golden metal plates, giving it a beautiful appearance. It was also quite tight, more than any armor Shen had seen yet.

Her body, armor, and something hidden in her neck—probably a necklace—were filled with mana. She also kept a transparent spell barrier in the air to provide some manner of protection against the artillery shells in case she was too slow to get out of the way.

Shen passed by her and struck the next shell head-on. He deployed around him War-Combat Qi—which he decided to call Foundational Qi—around him and easily quelled the explosion and pushed the shrapnel aside. Artillery shrapnel was made of huge pieces of metal, and it gave Shen an idea. He redirected the pieces to a vast area around him. The metal moving at a fast speed destroyed whatever it hit, creating a cloud of dust to mask Shen's following movements.

Valentina slowed down and raised her arms when everything around her blew up. Shen swiftly grabbed her and ran back to his hideout before she finished the movement.

Seconds after he had told Alicia he would be right back, he returned with the flushed and confused Valentina.

Alicia looked surprised for a moment before pretending she was clearing a tear from the corner of her eye. "Look at my big boy! He's bringing girls home now!"

Valentina finally realized she had been brought by someone and turned quickly to see who it was. The word "boy" and Alicia's joke probably hadn't helped; Valentina might as well have thought she had been kidnapped by some weirdos.

When she saw Shen, however, her fear quickly turned into delight.

"The human God blessed me!" She stepped toward Shen, who instinctively stepped back. "Please come with me to save people who need saving!"

Shen and Alicia exchanged a look; the way she was phrasing it sounded off. "What do you mean?" Shen asked.

"I'm Marzia's friend," Valentina explained. "Her father kidnapped me and some other friends to blackmail her. You know how he's an evil man; you pointed it out in your social media accounts. Right?"

Shen stopped himself from showing any facial expression, but the way Valentina talked was quickly going from off to suspicious very fast.

She continued her tale. "The guards kept arguing with each other when you killed Marzia's father, and I used the opportunity to escape. But we need to get there fast to save them. I don't know what'll happen to them now that I escaped."

Shen looked pointedly at her armor. "And did your kidnappers let you keep your magic equipment when they locked you up? Or did they just wait for you to dress up before trying to stop you?"

"They let us have it," she said without missing a beat. "Please, we have to go. Please, I beg you. Please." She put her hands together and jumped a little like a child begging their parents for something. It felt very out of place.

Shen shook his head. Her words were suspicious enough, but more than that, his Battle Sense was still active, and he could tell she was lying through her teeth.

"I don't know what kind of wicked plan you have in your mind," he said, "but believe me, it won't work. I'm basically immune to non-nuclear mortal weaponry, and I can deal with any amount of magic attacks if I need."

"That's why I need you!" she insisted as she started crying. "Please, please, let's save them. Please."

Shen was starting to find that attempt pretty ridiculous, so he tried another approach. "You claim to be a good friend or Marzia, is that correct?"

"Yes! Please, believe me!"

Shen produced his smartphone from the fold in his clothes where he kept it and gave it to her. "Show me any picture of you two together."

She looked afraid at him, then shook her head. "I can't," she said with exaggerated suffering. "You're right; I'm not her friend. I just wanted you to come fast. I really found her actual friends locked up." She looked him straight in the eyes. "I'll explain later, but we don't have much time. Please."

Shen had heard about people who could look someone in the eye and tell whether they were lying. He couldn't. He could only analyze their posture, the trembling of their voices, their pupils' dilatation, temperature, sweat, and heartbeat rate. His Battle Sense let him do all that instantly, using all he knew about people's reactions when they lied.

Obviously, the woman was lying through her teeth, but he didn't understand why she was so insistent.

Had someone elaborated a trap that might actually kill him?

"Stop lying first," he said firmly. "If you explain it to me and I believe you, then I'll follow you."

Valentina looked at him for a while, tears flowing freely from her eyes and whispering, "Please, don't do that to those innocent people waiting for rescue. Please."

Shen wasn't moved.

When Valentina understood nothing she said would change things, something changed inside her, though he couldn't pinpoint what, only feel it through the Battle Sense.

A moment later, She widened her eyes slightly. Then her tears stopped falling, and she showed a completely blank face. There were no emotions lost in her expression at all.

"In your current state, you're incapable of accepting anything I say as the truth," she said while putting her hands on pockets in her upper leather armor. He hadn't even noticed those pockets before. "The sky is blue. Red. Yellow. Your name is Jack. Alicia. Feng Shen."

She was right. Even when she said something that Shen knew was true, he felt like she was lying.

He suddenly found himself very, very wary of the woman.

"Now, let's try something else," she said. "Turn your Conceptual Bond off."

"Conceptual Bond?" Shen asked though he could guess what she meant by the context.

"You're using Concepts to bind yourself to me. Which can be quite dangerous when done to stronger beings, by the way. Go ahead, turn it off," she insisted. "I'll teach you something for free."

Shen frowned, glanced at Alicia—and she understood his look because she started slowly stepping away from the woman—then turned his Battle Sense off.

"The sky is blue. Red. Yellow. Your name is Jack. Alicia. Feng Shen," Valentina repeated.

Valentina hadn't changed anything in her posture or the way she spoke. Even her words were the same. Yet, Shen was now absolutely sure she was telling the truth. Everything he knew told him that, just as it told him the opposite a moment ago. It was as if his knowledge was being rewritten to make him conclude she was telling the truth.

Shen started getting really worried.

"What did you do to me?" he asked, clenching his spear.

"I exist on a different level than you, beyond your comprehension, and your mind is trying to compensate however it can," she explained unworriedly.

"When you use only your ordinary senses," Valentina continued, "you take anything I say as truth because I'm close to what mortals would see as a god, and a god's word is absolute.

"When you use your Conceptual Bond, you take everything I say as a lie because Reality doesn't have a strong enough hold over me. It instinctively rejects me, and you feel that through your active usage of your Concepts.

"I would've never tried this stupid ruse if I had known you had unlocked a Conceptual Bond." She looked at the skies. "I blame you for this, Yornolar."

It became pretty obvious Valentina was from the Alliance. She also at least thought of herself as much superior to Shen, though she might as well be lying. He couldn't read her and wouldn't know.

"How did you identify my 'Conceptual Bond' now if you couldn't before?" he asked directly while reactivating his Battle Sense.

Shen would not let himself be intimidated without a fight. Valentina was still an E-rank unless the system was lying to him—and supposedly, this wasn't any of the two situations in which the system might lie. "Different level" or not, he bet she could still bleed.

"I didn't want to reveal my abilities, so I didn't use them, and some are needed to detect Conceptual Bonds," she clarified. "I miscalculated how weak I should get to approach you. It's hard to differentiate an ant from another, after all."

That kind of explained it, but the way she kept talking as if she was much superior to him... What if she truly believed it? What if it was true?

"Is the system lying to me about your strength?" Shen asked.

"Of course," she said matter-of-factly as if that didn't put in check everything he knew about the system.

Either she or the system was lying. Shen had to pick one to decide on his course of action, but for that, he needed information.

"Who are you?" he asked. "What's going on in here?"

"I'm currently... What was my name again? Yes, of course, Valentina Bianchi. I'm here to negotiate. I knew you would get defensive if I asked directly, so I tried to become your friend instead. But not even I can feed false information to a Conceptual Bond or twist it in a way that you wouldn't notice.

"Now, to business. Tell me about this planet's past. How was your home? Who ruled over it? Who were the strong cultivators in your time? Name your price to tell me everything."

Shen's mind was working very fast. How powerful was she? What was her agenda? Why did she want to know about the Eternal Empire?

"I was just living in a small cultivator town—" he started, but that was all he could say before she exploded.

"Don't you lie to me, you disgusting insect!" Valentina suddenly yelled, and Reality trembled.

The world shook. Shen was struck by a sound wave strong enough to deal a few points of damage to him and force him to step back. Alicia screamed and put her hands on her head as if it hurt.

"What?" Valentina said as if surprised at what happened. "No, no! I didn't attack anyone! It's not my fault this anthill is so fragile, and don't you dare say otherwise!" she yelled while looking at the skies, this time without any strange power behind her words. "Yes, of course. Yes. What? No, I won't tell him that! That will make everything much harder— Yes. Yes, of course. Alright."

The strangest thing about her was that she still showed no emotion on her face. Not when she had yelled, neither when she had been talking to someone invisible. Her voice was emotional, but that was all.

She looked at Shen. "I was ordered to tell you that I cannot and will not, under any circumstances, attack anyone on Earth unless attacked first. No matter what, my supervisor will not give me permission. Not that the last two ants were much to write home about." She rolled her eyes. "So, your price?"

Shen ignored Valentina and approached Alicia. "Are you alright?" he asked, though the answer was an obvious "no." She had fallen to her knees, and blood was coming out of her ears, nose, and eyes.

"Oh, stop it," Valentina said. "It's just a scratch. Heal."

The way she said the last word had power. A kind of power that Shen felt in his very bones. It was primal, powerful, and promised more, like a beast growling in the depths of the universe.

Reality twisted itself to obey. Shen felt it in a way that was hard to describe. Alicia seemed to flick, her image swiftly doubling before one of them disappeared. It was like her existence had just been instantly rewound in time. One moment, she was hurting on the ground. The next, she was whole again, standing, and the blood was gone.

"See, she's fine," Valentina said. "Stop ignoring me or avoiding my request and tell me what you want," she insisted. "Riches? Power? Information? Name your price, tell me about this planet, and we'll all be happy."

Shen looked at Valentina—or whatever her name was—with new eyes. What she had done... Shen had felt neither qi nor mana being used. She had commanded Reality in a way that he couldn't even explain.

It was as if she was a ruler that all existence had to obey.

She was also clearly unstable. She had said she was forbidden from attacking, but how could he believe she would comply with those limits? He didn't even have any proof she was talking to someone real instead of hearing imaginary voices in her head.

There was no chance he would ever tell her anything about the Eternal Empire.

The big question was: should he fight her—and her mysterious power—to keep his secret, or should he tell a lie?